MASKELYNE, JOHN NEVIL

born Dec. 22, 1839, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Eng. died May 18, 1917, London British magician whose inventions and patronage of new performers greatly influenced the development of the art of producing illusions by sleight of hand. Trained as a watchmaker, Maskelyne became famous in 1865 when he exposed the Davenport Brothers as fraudulent spiritualists. For eight years he and George A. Cooke toured with a show featuring Maskelyne's box trick, juggling, and automata. After Cooke died in 1904, Maskelyne took as a partner David Devant, the most famous magician in England. He and Devant collaborated on Our Magic (1911), an important source book on the theory of magic.